Artist Statement
In my creative process, I explore immediacy, light and movement as I search for balance between transparency and color. This is a constant dialog in which texture and color intertwine, overlap and contrast, setting a variety of forms in motion.
I develop techniques initiated through spontaneous exploration that culminate in a pattern that can be captured and repeated with a precise fluidity. My work takes inspiration from experiences, images and places. Sometimes the process of remembrance is dominated by a color or a texture. Incandescence, luminosity, chromatic subtlety are words that inform my current approach.
In my latest work white is essential, it serves as a foundation from where everything starts and as a final envelope that brings a piece to completion. I think of white as the spatial quality that brings balance to my pieces, while I incorporate iridescence to emphasize a delicate, continuous flow of luminosity.
Originally from Chile, Mariela "Pillay" Fernandez is a practicing architect currently based in San Francisco, California. She started painting more than ten years ago. Having graduated from an architecture school that placed great emphasis on art and poetry, her academic training in architecture has played a fundamental role in her artistic development.
